• Dibyendu Majumdar (1/1) Mar 05 2020 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?
• Stefan Koch (8/9) Mar 05 2020 Indeed.
• sarn (10/15) Mar 05 2020 Yep, I've experimented with using using this with (plain) LDC:
• Dibyendu Majumdar (5/12) Mar 06 2020 Is it this one you mean:
• Walter Bright (2/3) Mar 06 2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22402123
• Dibyendu Majumdar (5/8) Mar 06 2020 Well most reasons stated in that thread appear to be spurious?
• kinke (2/4) Mar 06 2020 Wrong question - what would be the point of such a backend?
• Walter Bright (4/12) Mar 06 2020 I know people like to argue with me about the validity of the points. Mo...
• bachmeier (3/15) Mar 06 2020 Notably absent from the OP's post is a compelling argument in
• Dibyendu Majumdar (4/9) Mar 07 2020 My question was whether anyone had done this before ... not an
• 12345swordy (5/6) Mar 06 2020 None, there is simply no good reason for dmd to have a c backend.
• IGotD- (10/16) Mar 06 2020 With LLVM, intermediate languages or "transpilers" has become

Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile majumdar.org.uk> writes:

Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

Stefan Koch <uplink.coder gmail.com> writes:

On Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 20:51:40 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar 
wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

Indeed.

If I recall correctly Daniel Murphy did work on one.
newCTFE has a C backend as well, which of course will only work 
for CTFEable code.
There are also approaches which use the unofficial LLVM C backend 
via a custom build of LDC.

sarn <sarn theartofmachinery.com> writes:

On Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 21:43:45 UTC, Stefan Koch wrote:
 On Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 20:51:40 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar 
 wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

 There are also approaches which use the unofficial LLVM C 
 backend via a custom build of LDC.

Yep, I've experimented with using using this with (plain) LDC:
https://github.com/JuliaComputing/llvm-cbe

I got "Hello World" to work, but unfortunately llvm-cbe's forward 
reference generation is buggy, so I gave up trying to get 
anything more complicated to compile.

Credit goes to this post for the original inspiration:
https://qiita.com/mono_shoo/items/81b98ac5656a47617232
(Post from the Japanese D community about using llvm-cbe to run D 
on a microcontroller.)

Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile majumdar.org.uk> writes:

On Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 21:43:45 UTC, Stefan Koch wrote:
 On Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 20:51:40 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar 
 wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

 Indeed.

 If I recall correctly Daniel Murphy did work on one.

Is it this one you mean: 
https://github.com/yebblies/dmd/tree/microd

 newCTFE has a C backend as well, which of course will only work 
 for CTFEable code.

Cool, is there an example C output?

Regards

Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:

On 3/5/2020 12:51 PM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22402123

Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile majumdar.org.uk> writes:

On Friday, 6 March 2020 at 11:02:36 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
 On 3/5/2020 12:51 PM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22402123

Well most reasons stated in that thread appear to be spurious? 
Only one that is perhaps a valid issue is debug info.

What would real issues for the better C dialect to have a C 
backend?

kinke <kinke gmx.net> writes:

On Friday, 6 March 2020 at 13:08:47 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:
 What would real issues for the better C dialect to have a C 
 backend?

Wrong question - what would be the point of such a backend?

Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:

On 3/6/2020 5:08 AM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:
 On Friday, 6 March 2020 at 11:02:36 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
 On 3/5/2020 12:51 PM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22402123

 
 Well most reasons stated in that thread appear to be spurious? Only one that
is 
 perhaps a valid issue is debug info.

I know people like to argue with me about the validity of the points. Most of 
them are value judgements, and I consider it compelling. With enough effort,
one 
can make anything work.

bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:

On Friday, 6 March 2020 at 21:27:12 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
 On 3/6/2020 5:08 AM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:
 On Friday, 6 March 2020 at 11:02:36 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
 On 3/5/2020 12:51 PM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22402123

 
 Well most reasons stated in that thread appear to be spurious? 
 Only one that is perhaps a valid issue is debug info.

 I know people like to argue with me about the validity of the 
 points. Most of them are value judgements, and I consider it 
 compelling. With enough effort, one can make anything work.

Notably absent from the OP's post is a compelling argument in 
favor of a C backend.

Dibyendu Majumdar <mobile majumdar.org.uk> writes:

On Saturday, 7 March 2020 at 02:41:27 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
 I know people like to argue with me about the validity of the 
 points. Most of them are value judgements, and I consider it 
 compelling. With enough effort, one can make anything work.

 Notably absent from the OP's post is a compelling argument in 
 favor of a C backend.

My question was whether anyone had done this before ... not an 
ask to create one. So no argument needed. I was curious, that's 
all.

12345swordy <alexanderheistermann gmail.com> writes:

On Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 20:51:40 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar 
wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

None, there is simply no good reason for dmd to have a c backend. 
Once the backend has been open sourced, effort has been made to 
port it to d via dbetterC.

IGotD- <nise nise.com> writes:

On Friday, 6 March 2020 at 19:24:13 UTC, 12345swordy wrote:
 On Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 20:51:40 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar 
 wrote:
 Has there ever been an attempt to create a C backend for D?

 None, there is simply no good reason for dmd to have a c 
 backend. Once the backend has been open sourced, effort has 
 been made to port it to d via dbetterC.

With LLVM, intermediate languages or "transpilers" has become 
less usual simply because they are less and less necessary. Also 
debugging becomes more difficult as you have an intermediate 
language that will fill up the debugging information rather than 
the actual language that you are using.

Nim, is the language that stands out that uses C as the main 
backend. It has benefits as well as drawbacks.

With LDC and GDC, a C backend is more or less obsolete and 
pointless.